Mont Ventoux, just because we could

In our prep for the Trans Provence we had to arrange our way to and from Nice and it coincided with Annemieke’s vacation. So we arranged it so that her camper was driven to Bédoin, where we’d arrive saturday after the Trans Provence… you may guess why…

When you are in the vicinity of the infamous Mount Ventoux… you just have to attempt to ride this 21 kilometer climb to reach the peak at 1912m. Our road-bikes where in the camper van, we took sunday off to relax. Sleep in, sit by the pool, sleep so more and catch up with loved ones. In the afternoon we took the car up to the peak, just to see what was waiting for us the next day. Now neither of us likes to get up early voluntarily, unless there’s a just cause for it… getting to the top before the heat was a good enough reason to set the alarm to “too early” once again. We coasted on our way to take the obligatory selfie at “Kilomètre 0” and than we where on our way.

I had never done any cols before this, not even smaller ones, so the Mount Ventoux is a giant to get started with. Annemieke kept warning me not to go to fast an pace myself. We had planned to climb the Ventoux from all 3 main departures that day, so we had to preserve our energy.

We started just before 8 in the morning, in the woods it was already very warm, we did well though and we reached the Chalet Reynard without much pain actually. After a short break we continued up, the exposed part of the climb, but we had a sunny day without much wind and big smiles on our faces while we continued on up.

The famous yellow kilometer-signs where telling us we where almost there and we arrived at the top together with a great sense of accomplishment, what a rush is this. Yes flowy downhill trails in Trans Provence-land are fantastic, this is also epic.

The temperature was also epic, at nearly 40-42 degrees we attempted to ride down to Sault, after a short while we gave up. If going down was this hot… coming back up was going to be nearly impossible… We’d had to settle for the one climb from Bédoin and attempt more another time.